Tell the USDA to Place Consumer Warning Label on Foie Gras.

Foie gras comes from birds who, in addition to being horribly abused, are diseased and extremely ill. Just like someone buying a pack of cigarettes, consumers purchasing foie gras have a right to know what they are really buying, and to be warned through appropriate labeling about the risks involved.

I join the Animal Legal Defense Fund in urging the USDA to place a consumer warning label on foie gras, the fatty liver of a force-fed duck or goose. Because the USDA is responsible for ensuring that poultry products are wholesome and for approving only products from healthy animals, stamping foie gras products with the USDA seal without disclosing that those products are derived from diseased birds misleads consumers, contravening the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

Foie gras products are not "wholesome," as stated on the USDA inspection seal. Currently, on U.S. foie gras farms in New York and California, ducks are force fed three pounds of mash a day through a pipe shoved down their throats -- the equivalent of force-feeding 45 pounds of food to an adult human -- inducing liver disease known as hepatic lipidosis that often cripples and poisons the birds. The cruel and unhealthy force-feeding of birds for foie gras production has been banned in over a dozen countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Israel, and a California state ban, passed in 2004, will go into effect on July 1, 2012.

Foie gras comes from birds who, in addition to being horribly abused, are diseased and extremely ill. Just like someone buying a pack of cigarettes, consumers purchasing foie gras have a right to know what they are really buying, and to be warned through appropriate labeling about the risks involved.